Zombie Toast Check it out if you want to see some of my "professional" RPG work.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Dungeons and Dragons of Dredmore

The graphical rogue-esque game Dungeons of Dredmore has been my terminal addiction for the couple of weeks. I was always a fan of rogue-style games and although Dredmore lacks a lot of the deep details and variety that most roguelikes have it more than makes up for it with fun graphics, fun gameplay and humor. It's also only like 5 bucks. Considering I've been playing it instead of games like Dragon Age or Ocarina of Time 3d that's a hell of a deal.

Anyway, enough of me gushing about this thing. One aspect of dredmore I find interesting is the crafting system where you smash together various items you find to produce new, often somewhat ridiculous, gear. This percolated about in my head for a while and combined with the work I've been doing on the World's Largest Dungeon (a place relatively stingy with magical gear and where PC crafting is next to impossible). So I thought...wouldn't it be interesting to make up a simple system for crafting crude magic items by combining other magical gear together. Not necessarily as efficient (or safe) as crafting them in the normal manner but something that could be done on the fly and with limited resources. Here's the basic rules I bashed together...

Each magic item on the list will be set up like so...

Name

Skills: The Craft skill and DC to create the item. This also includes any other skills required.

General Ingredients:These are non-specific ingredients and they take 2 forms: Doo-dads (wires, straps, bits of string, metal shards, etc) and Critter Bits (gizzards, dung, blood, etc). In most cases it's possible to sacrifice most pieces of gear to produce one Doo-dad and it's possible to harvest a Critter Bit from any slain creature (large creatures may produce several).

Specific Ingredients: These are specific ingredients, usually magic items that must be sacrificed or combined to form the final device.

Spells: Some devices require "activation" by casting spells of a certain type or level on the item.

Description

As a general rule crafting a magical item this way takes about 15 minutes, but it is not possible to take 10 or 20 and a failure on the Craft roll by 5 or more ruins the product and creates a disaster ranging from embarrassing (for small projects) to disastrous (for things like the Bolt of Mass destruction).

So...let's see how this works...I'll start with using some of the more amusing items from Dredmore and depending on how long this takes I may do more at a later date.

+1 Flaming Bolts/Arrows

Skills: Craft (Fletchery) DC 22

General Ingredients:1 Doo-dad

Specific Ingredients: Ruby worth 250 gp or more.

Spells: 1st level or higher spell that inflicts fire damage.

These function identically to standard +1 flaming ammunition. Keep in mind that this produces only a single bolt or arrow at a time. The same process could be used to create +1 Flaming Burst weapons but the ruby must be 400 gp or more and the DC increases to 23.

Alchemical Grenade

Skill: Craft (Alchemy) DC 25

General Ingredients:1 Doo-dad

Specific Ingredients: 3 Flasks of alchemists fire and a Wand of Burning Hands with at least one charge remaining.

This bomb is a grenade-like weapon with a range increment of 10 ft. which creates a 15-ft radius explosion of flame that inflicts 3d12 fire damage (DC 15 Ref save for half damage) and catches everything in the area on fire identically to alchemist's fire.

Arrow/Bolt of Mass Destruction

Skill: Craft (Fletchery) DC 30 and Use Magic Device DC 25

General Ingredients:3 Doo-dads

Specific Ingredients: Wand of Fireballs, Oil of Magic Weapon, Ring of the Ram

This is a device of incredible destructive power. Before it will function it requires a move-action to "arm" (this is in addition to any actions required to load the ammunition). Once armed it will detonate in 1d4 rounds or when it strikes a target, whichever happens first. The arrow/bolt has half the normal range for the weapon it's fired from and misses should be treated as a grenade-like weapon. When it strikes it explodes in a massive burst (40 ft radius) and inflicts half fire damage and half force damage. Damage is based on the wand used to construct the device, it inflicts a number of d8's equal to half the number of charges in the wand (so a fully charged wand inflicts 25d8). The damage also ignores the hardness of objects and is not halved like normal energy damage. Those in the area may make a DC 23 Reflex save for half damage.

This device uses the unique interaction of portable holes and bags of holding to create a multi-spatial rift in the planes. Dozens of small rips into various planes open in a 20 ft radius...then they get bigger. For 2d10 rounds the area of effect doubles in radius. Every creature or object within the effected area is torn apart by conflicting planar forces. This inflicts damage as a Disintegrate spell cast by a 12th level caster (save DC 22). Possession of these devices is outlawed by all nations and most major religions.

Elixir of Spatial Distortion

Skill: Craft (Alchemy) DC 25

Specific Ingredients: Potion of Jump and Potion of Expeditious Retreat

Spells: Any Summon Monster spell.

The imbiber is thrust through a short-lived portal to somewhere nearby. This functions like the Dimension Door spell (10th level caster) but it's difficult to arrive on target. The imbiber should choose where they want to "land" but they actually appear 1d20 feet away in a random direction.

Throwing Skull

Skill: Craft (Taxidermy) DC 15 and Knowledge (arcana) DC 20

General Ingredients:2Critter Bits

Specific Ingredients: Dust of Sneezing and Choking

Spells: Necromancy spell of 3rd level or lower (see below)

When properly prepared the bare skull of a humanoid can be imbued with a single necromancy spell of third level or lower that would normally be resolved with a touch attack (including ranged touch attacks). When thrown as a grenade-like weapon the skull bursts and unleashes motes of darkness that fill a 10 foot diameter area. Anyone inside this area is subject to the effect of the necromantic spell as though they had been struck by the touch attack. Spells that allow multiple touch attacks (such as Chill Touch) still only allow a single touch attack and spells that have an effect on anyone other than the victim of the touch attack (such as vampiric touch) do not have this additional effect.

Well, it's getting late and my brain is getting gradually less creative. So if more ideas come to mind I may add more to this list, we shall see.